A nation must think before it acts.
According to Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow Clint Watts, this move signifies one of Russia’s long-used and successful information strategy – to sow the seeds of doubt into media reports. The possibility of doubt in turn, throws even legitimate content churned out by mainstream media, in question.
“It’s not just an information war on America—it’s a war on information itself. The point of it is that you can’t trust anything. Then there’s no baseline. You can say and do whatever you want, and then deny it ever happened,” said Watts.
According to Watts, who is also a senior fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, the “just asking the question” narrative about the atrocities in Aleppo is not a new trend.